PLA Blog

In my previous life I worked for a vendor in various positions and did not have many opportunities to attend the lectures and programs held in the early evening. I took advantage of my new position at the conference to attend the Arthur Curly Memorial Lecture by Joe Klein, Time Magazine and began to think about how his lecture relates to public libraries.

Joe Klein, columnist for Time Magazine gave an arousing lecture on the Iraq War Saturday evening. He laid out the reasons the Bush administration began the war and why it is unwinnable. His analysis was clear and enlightened. He answered audience questions until 6:00 p.m., answering questions about the upcoming presidential campaign, Iran and Palestine. One audience member made an important point about misinformation. She received an e-mail about the alleged background of Barak Obama. The e-mail accused Obama of being related to Osama Bin Laden and a member of extremist Islamic groups.

Klein underlined the importance of libraries periodically during his talk and after this comment. He called libraries “Curators of Citizenship.” He wants libraries to create displays and programs about Islam and the Arab World. While many libraries are doing this, his talk seemed to bring a sense of urgency and increased effort. Campaigning for the 2008 presidential election is already beginning. The importance of picking a new President to deal with the Iraq war and work in the delicate regions of the world makes the library’s place as educator even more important. Truthful information about the world needs to be available to everyone equally. And, of course, this is where the public library comes in. If it has been a while since your library provided programming on Iraq, Islam, or the Arab World maybe it is time to get creative! Encouraging curiosity about the world is what libraries do best. And, for those of you with great programming ideas please share them here or in another forum.

Tags: ALAMidwinter2007, library programming, PLA Blog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 2:31 pm and is filed under PLA Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.